WSJ Covers Zoot Shooters

Michael Bane is pleased and Paul Helmke is having heart palpitations. The Wall Street Journal just ran a front page story on the American Zoot Shooters Association - and it was favorable.




The story notes the contrast between the quest for authenticity of the Zoot Shooters and cowboy action shooting. While zoot suits are more properly associated with the 1940s, the Zoot Shooters' stages are more from the Roaring 20s and 30s.The story notes that some cowboy action shooters criticize them for it. However, "Judge Roy Bean" - co-founder of the Single Action Shooting Society - had this reaction:

Among them was Harper Creigh, the 74-year-old founder of cowboy action shooting, who goes by the alias Judge Roy Bean.

"I at first thought they hated us," Mr. Huss said.

Instead, Mr. Creigh said he knew who Mr. Huss was and told him that about 25 years ago he and a buddy contemplated creating a shooting sport with Tommy guns called the "Roaring Twenties." The idea never came to fruition. "If I wasn't so old and beat up I'd probably jump in and get involved," Mr. Creigh says.

It is good that the Wall Street Journal is running stories on action shooting. Stories such as this help remove the stigma from the gun culture that the Brady Campaign and some in the mainstream media have tried to propagate.